The Crane
by Lancer47
Summary: Gibbs and his team has another murder to solve, but it get's a little strange.
1. Chapter 1

**The Crane**

Lancer 47

_NCIS crossover with Buffy the Vampire Slayer_

**Chapter One**

"Rayid! Is Jameson up the fuckin' crane yet? How come it ain't movin'? We got forms to set up on top and it's already daylight!"

"I dunno boss, he ain't answering my signal," said Rayid, giving up on the radio and grabbing his cell phone. But there was still no answer.

The foreman asked, "Is he even up there?"

"Yeah, his trucks parked over by the trailer."

"Well shit, alls I need today is crap before we even get started. Go on up there Ray, see what the fucks the matter."

Ray looked up at the three hundred foot tower crane and sighed, "Okay, boss."

About thirty minutes later something gloppy landed on the ground beside Sam, as well as on his hardhat. He swiped his hand across the top and it came away with a slimy, gooey, stinking mess. "What the fuck…?" He looked up and saw Rayid stumbling down the crane's ladders, crashing into the safety cage bars, slipping down several feet into the next landing below him, slamming into the bracing, stopping to puke over the side, again, and continuing his trip down the tower in the most hazardous manner possible – Sam was surprised he hadn't pitched over the rails and smashed down at his feet. He waited with as much patience as he could muster after wiping his slimed hard hat in the dirt.

Rayid finally made it to the ground in one piece, but rather than stop and tell Sam what was wrong, he just barreled on by, his eyes wide open, issuing a sort of moaning noise as he blindly rushed towards the street.

"Grady! Jenkins! Grab fucknuts before he blunders into the street!"

Two construction workers stepped in front of the madly stumbling running Rayid and grabbed him by the arms. Sam walked over and was annoyed to see Rayid hunched over, crying, moaning, blubbering.

"Rayid! What the fuck? What was up there?"

"Dead, blood everywhere, shit, dead, dead, dead."

"What? How, heart attack?"

"No, no, no, killed. Oh my god, fucking dead. So much blood. Both of 'em."

"Both? Who the hell else is up there?"

"I got no fuckin' idea, boss, but they're both really fuckin' dead." He slouched further down on the ground and tried to bury his head between his legs.

"God dammit to hell!" Sam swore as he called the cops.

"Well I sure as fuck ain't gonna climb _that_ sumbitch," said Sergeant Anders as he looked up, and up, and up. He ruefully glanced down at his prominent donut-belly and looked up again at the slender yellow tower crane looming overhead, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Hey, don't look at me, I don't have a head for heights," said his patrol partner.

"Well, I guess we'll just hafta call the Fire Department. Them heroes live for shit like this."

Sam Reynolds stomped towards the police contingent. "I'm the foreman. What're ya gonna do about this? We gotta get that crane cleaned up and working, we got loads to lift if we're gonna stay on schedule."

"You're getting' ahead of yourself sir," said the sergeant. "This is a crime scene. You can't touch this crane until the detectives and the crime scene unit's through with it."

"And how long is that gonna take!?"

"I dunno, a few days, maybe a week."

"A WEEK! YOU CAN'T SHUT THIS CRANE DOWN THAT LONG! IT'S COSTIN' US EIGHTEEN THOUSAND BUCKS A MONTH! ARE YOU GONNA PAY THAT!?"

"Calm down sir; of course we won't pay that, and of course we can shut down the crane. It's a crime scene, you can't touch it until we okay it, and that's that. Nothing to be done about it." The sergeant took a good long look around at the whole four blocks of the construction site. Reynolds started looking a little nervous.

The sergeant said, "Hmmm, I wonder if we should shut down the entire project while we sort this out?"

"NO, you can't do that! Ah hell, the fuckin' crane's yours."

"Yes, sir."

They all stood around and waited until an elderly Crown Vic with flashers pulled up behind the black and white patrol car and parked; the driver completely unconcerned about blocking the path of a slowly moving trenching machine. Two detectives got out of the car, one female, thirty something, good looking but with a tough demeanor, wearing fashionable black jeans, a black wool jacket and a dark blue blouse. She took one look around at the construction site and she sat back down in the car to change her shoes.

The other detective, wearing an Armani knock-off, adjusted his silvered Ray-Bans and asked the senior uniformed cop, "Hey sergeant, what've we got?"

"There's two bodies up in the crane's control cab, detective. Yer gonna have fun with this one."

Both detectives eyes traveled up the crane to the top. "Holy shit! It's gonna take half the day just to get up there!"

"It's three hundred and twenty feet straight up. Even using the construction elevator to the tenth level, it takes about thirty minutes to go up – depending on your physical condition – but fifteen minutes to come down," said the foreman. "Less'n you have heart-attack while climbing, of course," he added.

"Or you miss a step and come down in ten seconds," mused the patrolman with a dark chuckle.

"So what the fuck, Fleming, someones gotta go up there," said detective Raker, still lacing her heavy duty but fashionably slim boots in the car.

Fleming shook his head. "I don't know Raker, that's not my sorta thing. Besides, the coroner's gotta go up first."

All the cops laughed. "Shit, the doc couldn't fit his stomach through the ladder cage, much less be able to climb that fucker – for him it'd be heart attack city fer sure."

The sergeant said, "We'll hafta get the Fire Department's Heavy Rescue out here to get the bodies down. But _someone_ official has to go up there now – there's no gettin' around it."

The two detectives looked at each other, silent signals flashing back and forth. Finally, Raker said, "It's up to me, right Fleming?"

"You know_ I_ can't climb that thing – I'd probably get dizzy and fall off, then you'd be stuck with all the paperwork."

"Yeah yeah," she said, disgusted, "I'll climb it, but _you_ get to do all the paperwork on this job, got it?"

Fleming glared back, but finally agreed, "Ahhh, okay. That means you'll be the lead on this one."

"You bet yer ass I'll be lead," she said as she turned to follow the foreman to the construction elevator.

Everyone else found something to sit on and prepared to wait. About fifteen minutes later the Fire Department Heavy Rescue truck showed up. It was too heavy to drive all the way to the base of the crane, what with all the mud and construction gear littering the site, so they stopped in the street with their lights flashing, oblivious to the cars they blocked. A couple more patrol cars showed up and uniformed officers placed traffic cones and started directing traffic.

The unit chief walked over with a couple of firemen. They noticed the female detective slowly making her way up the tower crane. The firemen seemed cheerful at the challenge ahead as they studied the machinery above them.

The fireboss, after consulting with the patrolmen and the detective, said to the firemen, "You two, head on up. See what we need to do to get the bodies down." They headed to the elevator to begin their ascent.

* * *

DiNozzo immediately noticed the cute, but severely dressed and coiffed blonde as she marched out of the elevator towards the stairs and up to Vance's office. He wondered why such a good looking young woman would feel the need to wear such plain and business-like clothing.

"Ehhh," he said, shaking his head in dismay, "why would a girl like that hide her, uh, attributes, so much? I mean, could she possibly look any plainer? Or any more earnest and bureaucratic?

Ziva said, "Her eyes are threatening to pop out because her hair is stretched so tight by that bun."

DiNozzo chuckled, even Tim grinned from behind his computer.

Gibbs passed her on the balcony and came downstairs. "Quit speculating – DiNozzo, get back to work, unless you'd rather help clean the autopsy room?"

"Ah, no, that's quite all right boss, I've got quite a bit of work right here."

He was about to berate Tony some more when he was interrupted by Vance and the blonde coming downstairs. "Gibbs, this is Ms Elizabeth Summers, a field investigator from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO sent her to do an efficiency study – she's to accompany and observe. However, her safety will be your responsibility since she's an accountant by training."

Gibbs objected immediately, "Wait a minute, we can't have an untrained person tagging along, slowing us down, getting in the way..."

"Gibbs!" said Vance, "It's _not_ your decision. The sequester is law and we _must_ cut our budget by ten percent, there's no choice. Congress, in it's infinite wisdom, has given law-enforcement agencies a little leeway so we can at least see what may be safely trimmed without compromising our investigations. So suck it up, it could be worse – they could've just chopped our budget with an ax." He turned and left, obviously irritated and not wishing to argue anymore.

Gibbs frowned. "So, Ms Summers, do you carry a badge or a gun?"

She shivered, "No, I don't like guns and I'm an Investigator, not a law enforcement agent." She got out a small notebook and started making notes as she counted the number of monitors on the divider with a grim and humorless demeanor.

McGee, Ziva, and DiNozzo, all out of Summers' line of sight, grimaced in accidental unison.

Ziva asked, "If you don't carry a gun, how do you plan on staying safe if you accompany us into the field?"

"Oh," she said, "Don't you worry about little ol' me, I'll just trail along, safely in back of you big strong men – and woman – making notes. I won't get in anyone's way."

Gibbs said sourly, "All right, when we go into the field, Ms Summers, you will ride with Agent David."

"That's _Investigator_ Summers."

"Great," he murmured.

"What was that?" she asked sharply.

"Nothing, nothing." He turned to Ziva and said, "Please show _Investigator_ Summers the ropes, Agent David."

"Ropes? What ropes?" asked Ziva, confused.

"That means shows her how we work, where everything is, you know, get her oriented."

"Got it."

* * *

After forty minutes of waiting around, Fleming's phone rang. "Yeah?"

"This is Raker, we need to call NCIS, one of these guys is an active duty Marine."

"Yeah? Hey, that's good news, right? We can give them the case?"

"No, the other one's the crane operator, he's ours, it looks like we'll have to work with the Feds on this one."

"Oh, too bad, I'd rather give them the whole thing. What about the firemen?"

"Well, somebody still has to get the vics down, I don't think the Navy has a land-based heavy rescue unit."

"Probably not."

"And these firemen have been busy brainstorming up a plan – I think they'd be real disappointed if they don't get to carry it out."

* * *

Tony DiNozzo was hunched over his desk, whispering into his cell phone, rapidly tapping his pencil on his desk with his free hand. Ziva finished a can of tomato juice and smiled as she saved the straw and tossed the can into her wastebasket. She studied the straw, noticing that it was heavy duty plastic and fairly large diameter for a straw. She tore off a strip of paper and chewed it for a few moments, then shaped the wet paper so it was about the size and shape of a pea. She made a few test fits, adjusting the diameter a few times, then carefully inserted her paper ammo into the straw, took aim, and fired.

DiNozzo slammed back in his chair, his hand slapping the side of his head. "What the…?!" he exclaimed.

Gibbs, walking up behind Tony's desk, slapped him on the back of head. "Stop talking to your girlfriend on government time, DiNozzo!"

Tony looked suspiciously at Ziva who appeared to be intently studying a report entitled: _'__Evolving__Irrigation __Methods for__ Desert Climes'_. Even for Ziva that seemed a little dry, he thought.

"Ah, sure boss," said Tony, "but that wasn't my girlfriend, that was..."

"I don't give a damn who it was if it wasn't official business. All of you, saddle up. We've got a dead marine at a construction site in Arlington. Ahh, has anyone seen our Investigator?"

"I think she's in the ladies room," said McGee.

"No, no," said Ziva, "she's down in the lab bonding with Abby."

"Really?"

"Yes, she and Abbs are getting along surprisingly well."

"Is that good or bad?"

"I wouldn't know," replied Ziva.

"Let's go, if she can't keep up we can't wait for her."

"I'm _stunned_ Senior Agent in Charge Gibbs, you were specifically ordered by your superior to have me accompany your team, are you second guessing the Director of your Agency?" said Buffy.

Gibbs actually jumped, a very small amount to be sure; he was so surprised that anyone was able to sneak up behind him.

"Very good Investigator Summers, we're behind, let's go."

* * *

Gibbs glared at all the cop cars and firetrucks blocking the way to the crime scene and parked on the street in front of the huge heavy rescue fire truck, waving for Palmer to drive the NCIS truck as close as he could. They all got out and walked over to the people standing around the base of a crane.

"Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS, what've we got?" Gibbs flipped open his badge for a guy with silvered sunglasses who acted like he was in charge.

"I'm detective Fleming, Arlington PD. We have two bodies, one's a construction worker and the other's a Marine. It's a little unclear how they were killed."

"Ahhh," Gibbs looked around the site with a frown. He didn't see any dead bodies. "Where are they?" he finally asked.

The agents followed the finger of the detective as he pointed up.

"Yeowza!" said DiNozzo, "On top of the crane? Probie, it's your turn. Up you go!"

Tim looked up, the blood rushed from his head making him dizzy when he realized the specks up on the boom were people. "There's no way, sorry, you know I couldn't even get to the second landing without passing out."

Gibbs said, "I could go up, but I'm in charge, so I have to stay here."

DiNozzo said, "Yeah, no, I could go up too, but I think I'm having a relapse of the plague."

Ducky sat down on a conveniently placed stack of long 2x12s. "You younger people are going to have to step up on this one," he said, looking directly at Palmer.

Ziva said, "Well, it's you and me Palmer. You up for this?"

"Well, uh, I guess," Palmer said, looking up, shading the morning sun from his eyes with his hand. "At least I can try, maybe. I hope I can make it all the way up."

On a whim, Gibbs said, "Investigator Summers, you too, up you go."

Gibbs was more than a little surprised when Buffy said, "Sure, this tower looks a lot sturdier than the last one I climbed." And she stepped up next to Ziva, whose only reaction was to raise her eyebrows.

Fleming said, "Detective Raker is waiting for you up top, along with a couple of firemen. Our coroner couldn't possibly climb up there, and anyway, the city morgue is backed up – they're five weeks behind right now, because budget cuts – so we figured you'd want both bodies. The firemen have a plan to lower the victims, they're just waiting for you guys to give them the go-ahead."

Gibbs said, "Head on up."

Ziva and Buffy walked towards the construction elevator with bounce in their steps; Palmer trudged after them with his head down, breathing rapidly, pausing from time to time to take in several especially deep breaths. He wondered if this is what Cheyne-Stokes respiration felt like. The foreman handed them gray hard-hats.

Palmer stood in the elevator, next to the door, his back pressed against the expanded steel side. He visibly trembled when the foreman closed the door and the cage shuddered into motion. It rose interminably slowly.

Ziva said, "_Feh_, I could climb the stairs faster than this _c__hatichat __c__hara_ elevator."*

Buffy looked out the back, watching the scenery as the steel box rose into the air.

The foreman grinned. "Yeah, it's a little deliberate, but it'll probably get us there."

Palmer said, "Please don't joke like that."

The foreman took pity on Palmer and lapsed into silence.

A few minutes later they stepped out on level ten. They stood on an unfinished concrete deck, looking at construction equipment and stacks of construction material. The floors above them were supported by regularly spaced red steel columns which looked entirely too spindly for the job in their unwrapped state. There was a rectangular concrete core, but no exterior walls, just a couple of ropes with nets tied around the edge on entirely inadequate looking posts. The nets didn't keep the wind from blowing straight through the building. Palmer walked away from the elevator towards the core in a kind of half-crouching position, ready to immediately dive to the floor should it become necessary. Ziva and Buffy casually strolled to the outside edge, Buffy tugged experimentally on the top of the safety net.

"Ziva! Summers!" said Palmer, "do you have to go so near the drop-off?"

"Why not?"

"B, b, because, the edge, it's, it's ten stories straight down!" Palmer was twenty feet back, still slowly making his way towards the middle of the floor, looking for something solid to grab on to.

"I wouldn't get too close to that opening behind ya," said the foreman, "that's an elevator shaft and there ain't jack shit to keep ya from fallin' into the second subbasement, twelve stories down."

Palmer reversed direction so rapidly he tripped and would have hit the floor but Buffy caught him. He tilted up his head so he could see out from under his slipped hard-hat and wondered how she had managed to get next to him so fast.

"Have you looked at the crane yet, Palmer?" asked Ziva. "You see where it's attached to the building? Do you see the catwalk connecting the building to the tower?" She pointed diagonally across the structure.

"Shit!" he replied after pushing his hard-hat back on his head, "I don't think I'll be walking out on that!"

The foreman said, "Well, there's already three people up there, to tell the truth, I don't know how even two more'll fit, much less three."

"Palmer, you're the one that has to go up there..."

"No, no, no I'm not. That creaky elevator was bad enough, there's no way I'm going out on that dinky little connector doohickey, it doesn't even have proper guard rails." He turned back to the elevator and forced himself to get in – making an exaggerated step across the little gap between the building and the elevator floor. He hung on for dear life with his eyes shut tight and waited for the foreman to come back to operate the elevator.

The foreman said, as he hit the controls to close the doors, "Do you want to inspect the top floor?"

"God no. Down, please, please, just get me down – I want to walk on dirt again!"

Ziva rolled her eyes, then walked over to the crane side of the building, strode out onto the catwalk and started to climb up the tower, surprised to find that she was following Summers._How did she get ahead?_ she wondered.

They still had about a hundred and seventy-five feet to go, straight up. But Ziva kept at it, pausing for short breaks with Summers occasionally, and finally, taking the last few flights in one go, they made it up the last rung and stepped out onto a narrow expanded steel deck with a sturdy handrail. Ziva couldn't help but notice that Summers wasn't even breathing hard.

"Hi," she said to the female detective, "I'm Special Agent Ziva David from NCIS and this is Investigator Summers."

"I'm detective Cynthia Raker."

Ziva and Buffy shook Raker's hand and Buffy waved to the two firemen who were sitting casually above them on the jib, their boots waving in the air over the more than three hundred foot drop. They seemed quite happy up there. They waved back and smiled at them. Ziva noticed that for all their apparent casual attitude, they had safety straps connected to the crane.

Ziva couldn't help but look around, taking in the sky and the incredible view. She turned to stand next to Summers and they looked into the cab.

"What in the name of Hades happened here?!" exclaimed Ziva as she took in the bloodstained interior.

They were standing beside the control cab which was below the jib, stuck out on the side of the tower just above the huge turntable bearing. From the door it was a short stretch to sit down at the controls. In easy reach of the seat, there was a microwave oven, a small television, and a plastic cooler stuffed into a corner. The cabin was mostly glass in front and on both sides, as well as an angled pane down in front, the glass continuing below a footrest for the operator's feet. But nearly every interior surface was splattered with blood and gobs of flesh.

Ziva said, "This is a hell of a place to find a dead Marine."

Raker agreed, "No shit. I'm still not sure where the hell killed them, though."

Ziva, leaning over the bodies, said, "Looks like an animal attack."

"Yeah, what kind of animal big enough to do that could climb up here? I mean King Kong is a little too Hollywood for my tastes."

Buffy frowned at the wounds and blood spatters.

Ziva said, "If we were on the ground I would say animal attack, wild dogs or wolves. While I can barely imagine a wolf successfully climbing these ladders to get here – if it was motivated – I can't for the life of me see how the damn wolf could get down afterwards."

The detective said, "Yeah, if there were any wolves hiding up here I think we would have found him by now."

"Or it would have found us."

"Yeah, so what about the other guy?"

"I think he was so shocked when he opened the door that he flipped out and fell. There isn't any blood on him, and the only wound seems to be on his head. His right temple is quite soft. I'll bet you all the money in my pocket to all the money in your pockets that the coroner's gonna call it a 'subdural hematoma', or something close to that."

Buffy was feeling the dead man's skull. "I think you're right," said Buffy as she stood up and backed out to allow Ziva entry.

* * *

While Gibbs answered his phone, DiNozzo turned to McGee and asked, "What d'ya think they're talking about up there?"

"Who?" asked Tim.

"That female detective, Summers, and Ziva – I bet they're probably talking about us."

"Why would they want to talk about either of us?"

"Well, you know, I don't want to toot my own horn, but with my manly physique..."

"Tony, they aren't talking about you, they're discussing the murders! Get a grip! And besides, if they are talking about us, it's probably about how neither of us have the balls to climb that crane."

DiNozzo frowned in annoyance. "Hey, speak for yourself, I've got the balls for it, I just have to be careful, you know, because of the plague."

"Tony, that's not how it works."

"How would you know?"

"Hey, I read, and I remember what I read. When you and I were in the hospital, I did a little research after we you got your diagnosis. You know, to make sure I wasn't gonna catch it from you."

"Nice."

* * *

* _Feh: _Yiddish exclamation conveying disapproval, displeasure, or disgust.

_* __c__hatichat __c__hara: _Hebrew for 'piece of shit'.

Note: Feel free to suggest corrections if I got these phrases wrong – or if you think it's just the wrong word choice for Ziva.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Crane**

Lancer 47

NCIS crossover with Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Chapter Two

The three women had climbed up on the jib and were sitting on some toolboxes on the surprisingly broad steel deck that led to the counterweight and machinery on the backend. They watched as the firemen went about rigging up pulleys and ropes. Eventually, one of them, leaning over the seat and the dead bodies, started up the crane and lowered the hook to the ground next to the base of the tower.

Raker and Ziva chatted companionably and didn't pay much attention to the activity taking place below them. Buffy had closed her eyes and was apparently taking a nap. So they only half-watched as two aluminum stretchers dangling from the crane's hook slowly rose from the ground. When the stretchers got close they could see someone was riding on the top one, they had extra safety lines that were being tended to by the firemen.

They were discussing the importance of good sturdy boots that fit well for crime scenes, when Ziva heard a familiar voice say, "Well this is a fine state of affairs – do any of you plan on earning your pay today?"

Ziva, startled, looked down through the railings and was amazed to discover that it was Gibbs riding the stretcher, calmly sitting in the middle with his feet over the side. Even she would have been hard-pressed to ride dangling from below hook three hundred feet up into the air like that.

"What kept ya, Boss?" she asked.

"Had to wait to catch a ride, my knees wouldn't take all the steps."

"Ha, likely story."

Since the hook couldn't reach to the control cab, the firemen pulled the stretchers and Gibbs in to the tower a few decks below. A few minutes later Gibbs came up the last steps and looked at the crime scene.

"So, what've we got?" he asked.

Ziva climbed down to the little platform next to Gibbs. The firemen stayed with the stretcher to allow the investigators room with the crime scene.

Ziva pointed into the control cab, "So we have two dead, our Marine from astonishing neck and chest wounds caused by nothing we've been able to think of. Our Marine Sergeant was clearly here first, we think the crane driver found him when he climbed up here this morning. I understand these guys are usually the first on a job site every morning, so it had to be well before seven, maybe before six. The sergeant was already dead with his blood and flesh sprayed liberally all over the inside of the cab. Then the crane operator opened the door and apparently shocked at the sight, tripped and fell, causing his head to hit the sharp corner of that tool box over there. He dropped dead on top. As you can see, there are no blood spatters on him."

Gibbs nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that looks about right. There's nothing else for us to do up here, so after we get the bodies down, I thought we'd go ahead and see if we can get the whole cab back to Abby's lab and let her do her thing. The construction foreman says these things are modular, he's calling the crane company out here to detach it and bring it down. He's being very helpful about it." After looking around for a few moments, he added, "You get plenty of pictures?"

"Yes. And plenty of bagged evidence."

He looked at the firemen. "You guys ready to load 'em up?"

They nodded. Gibbs looked around and asked, "Anybody happen to notice where Investigator Summers got to?

One of the firemen said, pointing out along the boom, "Out there."

About forty or fifty feet out along the boom Buffy was making her way along the exceedingly narrow catwalk tacked to the side. She was intently looking down, with one hand dedicated to holding on the various braces, shifting her grip from brace to brace, rather nonchalantly to Gibbs eyes, while studying the partially built structure directly below her.

Gibbs shouted, "SUMMERS! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?!"

Buffy looked up and gestured to Gibbs, "Come on out here, look what I found."

Gibbs glared but started out along the spidery yellow steel frame. He was happy to accept a safety harness and carefully snapped it to the appropriate rail. A few minutes later he, along with one of the firemen, made it to Buffy's side. She said, "Look down there, all the way down that open elevator shaft directly below us."

It wasn't easy to see because the sunlight didn't quite make it all the way down, but there was just enough to see…

"Is that a …?" said Gibbs.

Buffy, interrupting, said, "Yeppers, that's a dead body down there. And clearly a male."

"How can you tell from here?"

"Cuz of his massive erection."

"You mean he's naked?"

"Yep."

"And you can see that well?"

"Yeah, I've got pretty good eyesight."

The fireman said, "And you can really tell it's a man?"

"Yes, jeez, haven't you guys ever seen corpses before?"

"Well yeah, but he's down in the shadows there – I can tell it might be a body, but that's about all."

"Well, I can see him. And male corpses can get bigger hard-ons than when they were alive." She noticed both men looking at her with nearly crossed eyes and added, "Not that I've ever compared, it's just what I read somewhere – I don't know if it's true or not, something about blood pooling depending on the position of the body or something..." She trailed off, irritated at the reaction she was getting.

Gibbs shook his head and got his phone, handling it with exaggerated care so as not to drop it. "Ducky, since DiNozzo and McGee are off exploring you and the detective need to go into the structure, down in the basement, and look into the bottom of the south elevator shaft. It looks like there's a body down there."

He listened a moment and answered, "Yeah, we're pretty sure it's a dead man."

"You see anything else, Summers?"

"Nopers. Although I would like to check the top floor of the building, just in case there is any evidence."

"You know, Investigator Summers," said Gibbs, "you are an accountant. At least that's what I was told. You're supposed to be counting paperclips, not participating in our murder investigation."

Buffy was flummoxed. "Uh, well I have attended FLETC, I know about criminal investigations in general even though my current job is for the GAO Inspector General's office. I guess I just got caught up in the excitement and, and, hey, you're the one that sent me up here!"

Gibbs tried not to show his irritation. "I didn't expect you to climb up here, I was just ..."

"Just yanking my chain – ya think I didn't know? Anyway, what you didn't know is that I'm really bored documenting waste in government offices. You know how easy it is to find waste in government offices? It's really easy, and really boring, so of course I jumped at the chance to look at a murder case."

"Well, okay. But you need to butt out now. I appreciate your help finding the apparent perpetrator, but you need to get back to your job."

"Agent Gibbs, following you around is my job, or at least part of it. And if, from time to time, I share an observation with you, well, there's nothing hinky with that, is there?"

"Yeah, I don't really understand why you were assigned to a criminal investigation team. I don't see what you expect to accomplish."

"My instructions are to see where you are wasting time and money, and try to fix it."

"You think you can tell me how to do my job? Who has the experience here, you or me?"

"That's what I told my supervisor, but you know, it's government work. Someone comes up with a brainstorm and we're expected to make it work."

"I do know how that works. Look, don't get in my way, now let's head back."

Buffy followed Gibbs and the fireman as they carefully made their way along the boom back to the tower. So Buffy was not observed when she plucked a small clump of hair from a tiny gap where a brace was very slightly bent at a connection. She quickly pushed it into a convenient pocket.

* * *

Dr. Mallard got up and stepped over to the detective. "Detective Fleming, our more daring compatriots have spotted what looks likes a dead body in one of the elevator shafts, they request our assistance. Are you ready for what will undoubtedly be a daunting hike into the sub-basement?"

"Better down than up." Fleming was still amazed at the foolhardy actions of his partner and the agents. He couldn't even watch them climb the tower, much less clamber around on the boom. And just the thought of Agent Gibbs riding into the sky on a stretcher dangling from a hook was still sending shivers up his back.

They asked the foreman for a guide. He replied, "You're gonna need boots, there's standing water down there – probably not more than a few inches though."

"Palmer! Please be so kind as to get boots and coveralls from the truck – for both of us, you're coming too," said Ducky.

Fleming grabbed boots from the trunk of his car and they all followed one of the workers. The trip wasn't easy. There were all kinds of equipment in various states of installation. Crates all over, some opened, some not, large tools, as well as just plain junk laying around. And, true to the foreman's word, pools of water to splash through. They finally made it to the shaft, and after shoving some stacks of rigid insulation out of the way, they looked in. The bottom of the shaft extended about five feet below the sub-basement floor level, and was half-full of water. But there were some extremely stout looking springs sticking up a couple of feet from the surface, and on top of that some junk that fell or was thrown down the shaft from above, and on top of that, in a relaxed looking repose, was a completely naked man. Well, not that relaxed, he had several ferocious looking wounds on his torso and legs as well as a piece of steel thrust through his chest.

"Holy crap," said Detective Fleming, "he looks ready to fuck an elephant, I mean if he wasn't dead."

Palmer said, "Please detective, have a little regard, he was a human being."

"This is going to be a challenging crime scene," said Ducky, "I suppose we'll have to get a dewatering pump down here to see if there is any evidence in the pit, but we might as well move the body now. I see no reason to dawdle about."

* * *

About forty minutes later the group from the crane was congregated around the base of the tower, drinking water and relaxing from their arduous climb down, when Fleming and Palmer came staggering out of the building with a corpse on a stretcher between them, with Dr. Mallard offering navigation suggestions. Just as they got to the group, the sheet covering the corpse snagged on a piece of rebar and flew off, leaving the dead man in flagrant disregard of social mores as he was fully and aggressively rampant.

"Holy crap," said detective Raker.

Buffy said, "Jeepers!"

Everyone looked at her.

"See?" Buffy continued, "what'd I tell you? I mean, that's not normal, that thing looks frickin' dangerous."

Raker and Ziva nodded in agreement as they tried and failed not to look at it.

Tony was about to blurt something crude when Gibbs' elbow got jammed into his side.

* * *

That afternoon, back at the NCIS morgue, Doctor Mallard bent over the dead marine's body. The open y-incision allowed access to the organs. Ducky was examining the stomach when he frowned at an unexpected lump. He carefully cut it open and pulled out a clear plastic rectangle. He and Palmer studied it, and both shook their heads as Ducky dropped it into a tray.

"What do you suppose that is?"

"No idea, we'll see if Abby can identify it. Run this up to her now, Palmer, it might be important."

"Right away, doctor."

Later, Abby was working at her computer when she turned around and saw Gibbs and Summers standing behind her. She jumped two feet. "AHHH! Don't do that!"

"What Abs?"

"Sneak up on me like that, especially when I was just getting ready to call you. How do you that? How did two of you do that?"

"Practice. Here, have a Caf-Pow."

"Thanks." She swallowed a couple of gulps and picked up the clear plastic rectangle and waved in front of Gibbs eyes, and said, "I think you'll find that this is very interesting. I mean, really, really interesting. First of all, this is a solid state memory, but the type, wow, it's really amazing. They don't sell these yet, this is a prototype of a wireless solid state ten-terabyte memory chip with huge pre-fetch, although I hardly see why it would need a pre-fetch 'cuz this thing's so freakin' fast without it."

"So it's classified tech?"

"No, it's proprietary, not classified. This, or things like it, should be out for sale in a few years, after they work out the manufacturing issues. No, what's interesting about this is what's on it. Well, that and the method to hide it. See, this device doesn't have any external contacts or any kind of break in the surface – in normal operation it sits in a little cradle which sends power to it wirelessly, and it connects automatically to your computer, also wirelessly. It must have taken some seriously good programming to make it work so fast without any wires. Anyway, since it's a solid piece of some kind of plastic, or maybe clear ceramic or something, with no openings of any kind it was able to survive intact in a liquid environment – that is inside of the unfortunate Sergeant's body. I had to get one of the special bases and software from the manufacturer, and they were more than a little put out to discover we had this and were a little reluctant to cough up what I needed. But with some threats from legal they gave it up."

"So what's on it?"

"Oh, I predict you're not gonna like this. This has the complete plans for a destroyer. Specifically, the Zumwalt class Michael Monsoor, DDG 1001..."

"You gotta be kidding me! That's a multi-billion dollar destroyer! Plans for that ship must take up thousands of pages! This memory chip has to be worth… well I don't know what it's worth but it must be one helluva lot to – who? China? Russia? Who else could find any value at from this?"

"Yeppers. Thousand of pages, really big pages of really detailed plans all projected from a complex 3d model, also included on this little chip. Plus the specifications which is on many more thousands of letter size pages. And there's more thousands of pages about the sea trials of the first one, the Zumwalt. And they're all faithfully copied on this little piece of Lexan, or whatever the hell this doohickey is made out of. SECNAV is gonna crap his boxers when you tell him about this," said Abby.

"There's an image I didn't need," said Buffy.

"But what was a Marine Gunnery Sargent doing with it? Was he protecting it or stealing it?" asked Gibbs.

"That's a question for you to answer."

"Yeah, thanks Abs."

* * *

The next day, down in the NCIS evidence bay, Abby, wearing a properly fitted black hard-hat, protective goggles, white lab coat, heavy black boots and black construction gloves, her teeth lightly pinched her lower lip as she concentrated on maneuvering an electric forklift to get the control cab off a flat-bed truck.

"You know," McGee said to DiNozzo as they watched Abby, "I'm not at all sure Abby is authorized to operate that forklift."

"Who's gonna argue with her?"

"Good point."

Abby expertly swung the loaded forklift around and gently lowered the blood-soaked control cab onto a pair of 8x8 timbers. She backed up the lift, switched it off, and climbed down.

"So, let's see what stories you have to tell," said Abby to the control booth.

An irritated government warehouse worker stalked into the room and faced Abby. "Hey, you aren't supposed to run our equipment!"

"Chain of evidence, chain of evidence, chain of evidence!" Abby sing-songed. "In order to keep the chain of evidence intact, I have to run it, it's the law!"

"Huh, you could just supervise."

"Just take your forklift and go!" Abby pointed imperiously.

DiNozzo said, "We'll leave you to it, okay Abs?"

* * *

Back at the bullpen, Ziva and McGee worked industriously at their desks while DiNozzo and Summers collaborated on making an unusually complicated paper airplane.

When Gibbs got off the elevator, all three of his agents plus Buffy – apparently by telepathy – stood up and faced the monitors. Tony was front and center with the remote, the paper airplane nowhere in sight.

"Okay, what've ya found?" asked Gibbs.

Tony pointed his remote at the center screen and clicked it. A picture of a pure white cat sleeping on a black pillow in a shaft of sunlight came up. Tony frowned and clicked his remote again. The cat had shifted position. Another click and finally the screen showed a photo of a marine. "Uh, sorry boss, must be Abby's. Anyways, this is Gunnery Sergeant Jack Corruthers. He was stationed at Naval Sea Systems Command, right here at the Washington Navy Yard, just down the street. His assignment was with the Naval Regional Maintenance Center, but I don't know what his job was, yet. He hasn't been reported missing."

McGee said, "Actually, he was supposed to be traveling from Maine, he was at the Bath Iron Works and the Portsmouth Naval Ship Yard on some sort of fact-finding mission with a group from NavSea. Whatever their job was, it was done, and he was on the way back after taking the weekend off. Most of the rest of the group had already reported in."

Ziva asked, "Wait, they went from Maine to Norfolk to Maine?"

"No, no," said Tim, "they were in Maine at the Portsmouth Navy Yard–"

"Isn't the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Virginia, right next to Norfolk?" she asked, pointing her hand vaguely south.

"Ziva, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard is in Portsmouth, Virginia, but the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is in Kittery, Maine."

"Oh." She looked at her colleagues with a deep frown. "You're not having one on me, are you?"

"I think you mean 'Having me on', and no, that's really how they're named."

Gibbs said, "Are we finished with Naval naming standards yet? Can we get back to business now?"

"Wait," said Ziva, "let me get this straight, how far is Bath Iron Works from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard?"

"About seventy miles up the coast from Portsmouth."

"Portsmouth? But I thought that was Virginia?"

"No, not Portsmouth, Virginia; Portsmouth, Maine."

"Ahhh, two Portsmouths."

"The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is named after Portsmouth, Maine but it's in Kittery, on the Maine side of Portsmouth."

"Maine side of what?" questioned Ziva.

"Portsmouth lies on the border between Maine and New Hampshire," said Tony.

"What!? New Hampshire! New Hampshire isn't on the coast! Even I know that!"

"Actually, Ziva, New Hampshire does have about twenty miles of coastline – right between Massachusetts and Maine."

"I thought it was up in the mountains next to that other little state up there. Oh never mind, I need some coffee and a look at Google Earth," said Ziva.

"So what about the perp," asked Gibbs.

Tony pushed his remote and a morgue shot popped up on the screen. "This is Corporal Reynard, also USMC. He is, or was, attached to the Naval District Washington headquarters. We've probably seen him in this very building. His job was, well, I suppose he was a gofer. Apparently he was assigned to the motor pool and did various odd jobs, mostly driving visiting officers around. He was reported as AWOL six months ago, but there wasn't much follow up. Which pretty much tells us he wasn't doing anything critical."

"I'd think we would have remembered somebody with such a prominent bulge in his pants."

"I guess we can report Corporal Reynard's current status now," said Tony.

"So how did he end up naked at the bottom of an elevator shaft, and where did he leave his clothes?" asked Ziva.

No one had an answer.

Gibbs said, "In the meantime, have you had any success in tracking down the memory gizmo? It being such new technology it should tell us something."

"Yeah, it was part of a set that was being tested by NavSea, and since everyone involved seems to be assigned to NavSea Command, well..."

"Dead end?"

"Maybe, maybe not, we're not done questioning everyone yet."

"Why the hell not?"

"A couple people weren't back yet, and another's on vacation, but they're supposed to be back today."

"Then get the hell over there McGee, you and DiNozzo. It's not like you need to reserve a car from the motor pool to walk down the street a couple of blocks."

"Uh, yeah, sure boss. Come on McGeek, I'll walk shotgun."

McGee looked at Tony with a frown. "That kinda fell flat, Tony."

"Yeah, not a zinger, was it. I think I'm losing it."

* * *

"So you understand that the Zumwalt class is equipped with a multi-purpose equipment launch rack on the fantail. This will be used for any number of missions, especially stealth missions. Things like autonomous underwater vehicles – intelligence gathering you understand and I can't say any further what kind; and stealth launches like Marine Force Recon or Navy Seals would use," said an engineer at NavSea.

"And would the plans show this stuff?" asked DiNozzo.

"Oh sure, at least what's been thought of so far. There are a number of uses which have been planned for the future but haven't been designed at this time, therefore are not yet part of the construction documents."

"I see."

"So one of the intended missions for Zumwalt class is to stealth their way in close to shore, under cover of darkness or fog or clouds, and launch a low radar profile boat off the stern without slowing down, or not slowing down very much. Then the Force Recon Marine's could make their way to the beach for whatever mission they're running. We thought Seal teams would use the same boat, but it turns out they didn't want to use something designed for Marine's –"

"Seriously?" asked McGee.

"Yeah, seriously, it had to be special boat just for Seals."

DiNozzo said, "Sounds like Seals to me."

The engineer continued, "So, even though the launch rails restrict much in the way of size or weight variation, we still had to design a special launch from an accelerated request for a Change Order.

"So the Seal version is a touch shorter, holds a smaller crew, has a longer range, and is quieter. So I guess in the end it even makes some sort of sense to have different boats for different missions, but it was a real pain in the ass for us. Anyway, there was a problem, of course. There always is when there's even a small Change Order in the middle of construction, and the damn Seal boat prototype managed to damage the rails in such a fashion that when the Marine's tested theirs, it came close to killing them all. Luckily, one of the Chief bo'suns saw the problem and stopped them before they could launch it over the side. Anyway, that's why all the engineer's went up to Bath Ironworks. And the Sergeant was along to represent the Marines, because he'd actually done similar missions in the past. He considered it his primary job to make sure we didn't get Marine's killed because of a fuckup on our end, and we damned near did anyway in testing. I'm sorry he's dead, but he would've made our lives miserable when he got back. But now we have to live up to his standards without the fucker looking over our shoulder. I don't know which will be worse."

"Okay, thanks," said McGee. He looked at Tony and nodded to the door.

"Yeah, thanks," said DiNozzo. "I guess that's all we need here. Can we look at his office? Did he have an office?"

"He had a desk in a cubicle, I'd take you there, but it's classified."

McGee was ready, he handed a warrant to the engineer, along with a set of orders from the Pentagon.

"Huh, well I guess this squares it. Follow me."

McGee and DiNozzo poked around the Sergeant's desk, but found nothing of interest. After awhile they tried to interview some of the missing people, but no one was back yet, so they headed back to the office.

* * *

"Hey Giles, what happens when a really smart forensic pathologist autopsies a dead were-wolf?" Buffy asked over the phone.

"Is the corpse in wolf-form or human-form?"

"The body looks likes a man. Of course, he was found completely naked and with an incredibly big and hard, uh..."

Giles interrupted, "Yes, death can have an unusual effect on male anatomy. Also, werewolves tend to be, erm, abnormally well equipped, shall we say."

"Got it, but are you sure about no wolfyness in the corpse? How is that possible?"

"The werewolf aspect is entirely magical. Once they revert to human, there shouldn't be any animal qualities in evidence. There will be a few anomalies, however: he may be unusually hirsute, there may be micro-fracturing in the bones around some of the more prominent joints, and if the pathologist is proficient enough he will probably diagnose irregularities at muscle attachments and may well believe the patient suffered from moderate to severe arthritis. But that shouldn't cloud the autopsy report."

"Oh, good. Of course we still have to come up with an explanation of how he came to be entirely naked at a construction site."

"A construction site? Really?"

"Yes. I suspect he jumped from the boom of a tower crane to the top floor of the building, which was only about fifty feet. But I guess he didn't notice the open elevator shaft with nothing but a little moonlight to see by. Not even a werewolf can survive a 300 foot fall, so he ended up at the bottom of the shaft on a pile of junk and giant springs."

"That would do it."

"Yeah. The agents are going crazy trying to figure out why and where he left his clothes and weapons."

Giles chuckled, "Yes, that will confuse them. But I shouldn't worry, I feel certain that they will come up with a perfectly logical, if incorrect, explanation without any help from us."

"So I can just continue being a pain in the butt and they'll keep trying to ignore me."

"An excellent plan. Although since you have solved the supernatural aspect of this case and found the werewolf your were tracking, you might as well complete your undercover assignment and return to London.

"Um, no. I haven't finished the case because this wasn't the wolf I followed from England. But I did find evidence of the second werewolf both on the crane and on the roof of the building. So I'm still on the right track, but no vacay for Buffy, no matter how much I need one."

"Ah. Well that does complicate your assignment. Is your GAO cover going to allow you to stay with the NCIS team? At least for now?"

"Yes, there is an amazing amount of waste in government offices so I can detail it all and have a great deal of fun winding up Agent Gibbs." She paused a moment then added, "Damn, did I say 'winding up'? I blame you for corrupting my speechiness."

"Have I ever mentioned that your egregious piling-on of word endings occasionally causes a cascade of aneurysms? At my age such things are contra-indicated. Actually, I think you should spend even more time in London, perhaps in one of the satellite offices. This will improve your language and preserve my health."

"Jeez Giles, stack up the guilt why dontcha."

Giles laughed, "Don't ever change Buffy."

"Yeah, but what about the case?"

"I do believe it would help if Oz gave you a hand tracing the werewolf."

"Sounds good to me."


End file.
